What happened to compassion?

[RoyceConnors]

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video...tic-13-year-old/16aj5m4sv?from=en-ca-infopane

I was appalled to read about this and wonder how many others feel this way. How can someone ask a mother to do what they ask of her? I was left with disgust at for the person responsible and pray they never have to face what Fate can bring to their children.

 

[sereneone4u]

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video...tic-13-year-old/16aj5m4sv?from=en-ca-infopane

I was appalled to read about this and wonder how many others feel this way. How can someone ask a mother to do what they ask of her? I was left with disgust at for the person responsible and pray they never have to face what Fate can bring to their children.

That just makes me cry.

 

[Recidiva]

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video...tic-13-year-old/16aj5m4sv?from=en-ca-infopane

I was appalled to read about this and wonder how many others feel this way. How can someone ask a mother to do what they ask of her? I was left with disgust at for the person responsible and pray they never have to face what Fate can bring to their children.

There is still compassion. Not here, but I see it daily from people who do the right thing under challenging circumstances.

My son has Asperger's and is incredibly inappropriate and even scary at times because he has no sense of social boundaries. Many people can't separate out his behavior and consider him a threat.

I can't say that I find this letter to be...outside the realm of my experience except for the word "euthanasia"

Many people just think autistic people are just poorly raised or doing it on purpose, and think if the kid just had some discipline, they'd be fine.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

There is still compassion. Not here, but I see it daily from people who do the right thing under challenging circumstances.

My son has Asperger's and is incredibly inappropriate and even scary at times because he has no sense of social boundaries. Many people can't separate out his behavior and consider him a threat.

I can't say that I find this letter to be...outside the realm of my experience except for the word "euthanasia"

Many people just think autistic people are just poorly raised or doing it on purpose, and think if the kid just had some discipline, they'd be fine.

People are afraid of normal, too. People are afraid of anything that aint them.

 

[RoyceConnors]

http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/family-parenting/family-life/an-open-letter-to-one-pissed-off-mother

This is the mother's response to that letter. Kudos to her and her child.

 

[Recidiva]

People are afraid of normal, too. People are afraid of anything that aint them.

I'm pretty sure people are afraid of what's exactly them too.

 

[Recidiva]

http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/family-parenting/family-life/an-open-letter-to-one-pissed-off-mother

This is the mother's response to that letter. Kudos to her and her child.

Bless her, that's pretty much what I'd say. Having an autistic kid can help you develop patience and compassion and there's exactly the chance to spread it around.

My son still has better manners than most of the folks that would try to trash him.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm pretty sure people are afraid of what's exactly them too.

That's what Clint Eastwood said, ITS WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT THEMSELVES THAT SCARES EM. A woman told him that he's the sorta man who scares people.

 

[RoyceConnors]

Bless her, that's pretty much what I'd say. Having an autistic kid can help you develop patience and compassion and there's exactly the chance to spread it around.

My son still has better manners than most of the folks that would try to trash him.

I still remember my nephew when he was much younger and wouldn't allow anyone to hold him in any way, not even his parents. The surprise on everyone's faces, including mine, when he climbed on the couch beside me and wanted me to put my arm around him to watch Sponge Bob. I detest the show, yet watched episode after episode with him and it always made my eyes teary to hear him laugh.

Today, after years of therapy, one would be hard pressed to know he had that affliction. To this day, I am still his 'hero' and looks at me with eyes filled with love. He thought all the crazy handshake stuff was incredibly funny and we spent hours doing it. I can't think of anything more rewarding to my soul, than knowing I played a part in his development to overcome the obvious signs of Autism.

How little it takes to give and receive such huge rewards for it.

 

[devinity7]

The author of this letter is missing the opportunity to teach her children that there are people that we share this world with that need us to be a little more tolerant. Out of no fault of their own, they are different and don't want to be ridiculed or have others be afraid of them. Instead they are spreading more hate and that within itself is a crime.

 

[NekoParks]

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video...tic-13-year-old/16aj5m4sv?from=en-ca-infopane

I was appalled to read about this and wonder how many others feel this way. How can someone ask a mother to do what they ask of her? I was left with disgust at for the person responsible and pray they never have to face what Fate can bring to their children.

My niece has Asperger's. She was harassed continuously while she was in high school. At one point, kids were posting hateful messages on Facebook about her and calling her house and taunting her.

Since she is very high functioning, she was in mostly gifted and honors classes in high school. Most of her classmates were not aware of that she had autism. Finally, my sister and brother-in-law started contacting the parents of the students that were harassing my niece at school and online. Many of the students didn't believe that my niece had Asperger's. Once they started understanding my niece's condition, much of the harassment stopped. I have to say that most of the parents were appalled and disappointed with their children's behavior. Unfortunately, my niece was almost driven into a severe depression by all of the harassment.

I am happy to say that she is almost thirty now and has a wonderful career in the medical field. I am in awe of the grace and forgiveness that she has shown in the face of such adversity. She is such a remarkable and lovely person. It's a privilege to be her aunt and have her in my life.

 

[NekoParks]

I still remember my nephew when he was much younger and wouldn't allow anyone to hold him in any way, not even his parents. The surprise on everyone's faces, including mine, when he climbed on the couch beside me and wanted me to put my arm around him to watch Sponge Bob. I detest the show, yet watched episode after episode with him and it always made my eyes teary to hear him laugh.

Today, after years of therapy, one would be hard pressed to know he had that affliction. To this day, I am still his 'hero' and looks at me with eyes filled with love. He thought all the crazy handshake stuff was incredibly funny and we spent hours doing it. I can't think of anything more rewarding to my soul, than knowing I played a part in his development to overcome the obvious signs of Autism.

How little it takes to give and receive such huge rewards for it.

 

[Recidiva]

I still remember my nephew when he was much younger and wouldn't allow anyone to hold him in any way, not even his parents. The surprise on everyone's faces, including mine, when he climbed on the couch beside me and wanted me to put my arm around him to watch Sponge Bob. I detest the show, yet watched episode after episode with him and it always made my eyes teary to hear him laugh.

Today, after years of therapy, one would be hard pressed to know he had that affliction. To this day, I am still his 'hero' and looks at me with eyes filled with love. He thought all the crazy handshake stuff was incredibly funny and we spent hours doing it. I can't think of anything more rewarding to my soul, than knowing I played a part in his development to overcome the obvious signs of Autism.

How little it takes to give and receive such huge rewards for it.

Yes, my son was detectably different from birth, I remember my mom trying to get his attention when he was just newborn, and he wouldn't respond. Wouldn't even open his eyes for her. From a very young age I was the only person he responded to for a good long while. When I took him to the pediatrician, they'd tell me he was probably deaf. Now I knew this kid could hear a candy wrapper open two rooms away, so I'd stand behind him and clap and he'd turn his head. "He's not deaf, he just doesn't care about anything you have to say."

I went through defending my choices when I didn't think it was caused by mercury or immunizations, about how I was such a bad mom and I caused it all...not to mention it's just so much easier if you just deny it instead of mention the patterns...that appear to run in the family...

My whole strategy is to give him enough time to grow up at his own pace, which he probably never will in many ways, but he has surprised me and will do so again.

I'm lucky in that my son is not severe, he has a sense of humor, willingness to make eye contact and is a hugger (although he once told my mom he didn't want to hug her because he was afraid he'd catch old) and all in all, I'm lucky to be his mom for all the things he's taught me about the world, about compassion and about observation.

He still really doesn't care much about what an individual of authority has to say, unless it's of interest to him. And he thinks threats and being random is just funny. He couldn't get classified for years because he just makes up answers to things that he thinks are funny. I don't like to travel by air, because if you say "Don't say anything about a bomb, please." That's the first thing he'll say. He doesn't get that what is funny to him by stomping all over other people's hot buttons, can be detrimental to him.

So, I might not feel the same amount of outrage about this letter, because I've experienced things like this letter writer. I think it's tragic that it is in someone else's heart to do that, but I don't have to live with that heart within my chest. I genuinely feel sorry for them.

 

[Recidiva]

The author of this letter is missing the opportunity to teach her children that there are people that we share this world with that need us to be a little more tolerant. Out of no fault of their own, they are different and don't want to be ridiculed or have others be afraid of them. Instead they are spreading more hate and that within itself is a crime.

That idea is very hard to sell to a deeply suspicious and narcissistic person who believes in the golden rule of "Do unto others first." That's why I think they lack choices at a certain point of development. If you get that deep into that mindset, than anybody who is encouraging you to be kinder is just a dupe setting you up for failure.

 

[Recidiva]

My niece has Asperger's. She was harassed continuously while she was in high school. At one point, kids were posting hateful messages on Facebook about her and calling her house and taunting her.

Since she is very high functioning, she was in mostly gifted and honors classes in high school. Most of her classmates were not aware of that she had autism. Finally, my sister and brother-in-law started contacting the parents of the students that were harassing my niece at school and online. Many of the students didn't believe that my niece had Asperger's. Once they started understanding my niece's condition, much of the harassment stopped. I have to say that most of the parents were appalled and disappointed with their children's behavior. Unfortunately, my niece was almost driven into a severe depression by all of the harassment.

I am happy to say that she is almost thirty now and has a wonderful career in the medical field. I am in awe of the grace and forgiveness that she has shown in the face of such adversity. She is such a remarkable and lovely person. It's a privilege to be her aunt and have her in my life.

I'm lucky my son has Marfan's syndrome and has always been bigger than his classmates or he'd be physically bullied. As it is, at 6' 4" at age 15, he's escaped. Sending him to school is an extraordinary act of faith on my part, believing that if he stayed home he wouldn't learn...but I also think some days it's just conscious torture.

He's starting high school next year and I'm hoping it eases, but I doubt it. He's high functioning enough to now be in mainstream classes, but if the kids aren't actively harassing him, I'm getting phone calls about how his expressions are frightening the other children.

If you ask me, it's the other kids that are scary. I defend him and I advocate for him, but I can't make the world any more civil to him. I tell him that school is his job and learning is his goal, and he can't let anybody distract him from it. But of course they do. How could they not, behaving like felons. It is incredibly easy for the general populace to try to humiliate a child with Asperger's, because they think they can "teach him a lesson" by humiliating him into better behavior. That's why I think I've learned an incredible amount from him. I realize how much I learned only because I was humiliated into it, and how much I could unlearn if I followed his example and didn't let the group bully me into something.

Not that I was bullied, but there are so many subtle abuses to being "normal" that being Asperger's brings into sharp relief.

 

[NekoParks]

Yes, my son was detectably different from birth, I remember my mom trying to get his attention when he was just newborn, and he wouldn't respond. Wouldn't even open his eyes for her. From a very young age I was the only person he responded to for a good long while. When I took him to the pediatrician, they'd tell me he was probably deaf. Now I knew this kid could hear a candy wrapper open two rooms away, so I'd stand behind him and clap and he'd turn his head. "He's not deaf, he just doesn't care about anything you have to say."

I went through defending my choices when I didn't think it was caused by mercury or immunizations, about how I was such a bad mom and I caused it all...not to mention it's just so much easier if you just deny it instead of mention the patterns...that appear to run in the family...

My whole strategy is to give him enough time to grow up at his own pace, which he probably never will in many ways, but he has surprised me and will do so again.

I'm lucky in that my son is not severe, he has a sense of humor, willingness to make eye contact and is a hugger (although he once told my mom he didn't want to hug her because he was afraid he'd catch old) and all in all, I'm lucky to be his mom for all the things he's taught me about the world, about compassion and about observation.

He still really doesn't care much about what an individual of authority has to say, unless it's of interest to him. And he thinks threats and being random is just funny. He couldn't get classified for years because he just makes up answers to things that he thinks are funny. I don't like to travel by air, because if you say "Don't say anything about a bomb, please." That's the first thing he'll say. He doesn't get that what is funny to him by stomping all over other people's hot buttons, can be detrimental to him.

So, I might not feel the same amount of outrage about this letter, because I've experienced things like this letter writer. I think it's tragic that it is in someone else's heart to do that, but I don't have to live with that heart within my chest. I genuinely feel sorry for them.

Often it is difficult for high functioning autistics to get an autism diagnosis. For years my niece was labeled severely ADHD, obsessive-compulsive with oppositional disorder. She was not diagnosed with Asperger's until she was in middle school.

I wish you and your son all the best.

 

[Recidiva]

Often it is difficult for high functioning autistics to get an autism diagnosis. For years my niece was labeled severely ADHD, obsessive-compulsive with oppositional disorder. She was not diagnosed with Asperger's until she was in middle school.

I wish you and your son all the best.

Yup, he was unsafe in school when I tried to send him to kindergarten, and they wouldn't provide transportation for him but they wouldn't evaluate him. I home schooled him for years until the "automatic evaluation" came up and I finally got him classified. I had to beg him not to lie during the evaluation, and most of the time the evaluator would end up with me contradicting him during the interview. "Do you do ________" Him: No. Me: Ohhhh yes he does.

He's been diagnosed with Marfan's, which is a physical disorder, but affects his speech patterns and ability to write (muscles are loose, essentially, he sounds childish and his fingers can't hold the pencil steady enough to write clearly) But he can type like mad. He has a diagnosis of ADHD also.

Thank you! I appreciate the good wishes and good will. Can always use it!

 

[TE999]

It hasn't been that long ago since individuals like this boy were exhibited like animals in a zoo for the amusement of 'normal' people. Intolerance of the mentally and physically disabled and handicapped stems purely from ignorance and fear. This letter writer is more to be pitied than scorned.

 

[Recidiva]

It hasn't been that long ago since individuals like this boy were exhibited like animals in a zoo for the amusement of 'normal' people. Intolerance of the mentally and physically disabled and handicapped stems purely from ignorance and fear. This letter writer is more to be pitied than scorned.

Right. Even when my son was born the prevailing attitude was to have such a child institutionalized. I resisted and I'm grateful for it. Not that he wasn't a holy terror, he was, and I didn't get much sleep.

The Temple Grandin movie was very much like my early life with my son. The flash cards, the tantrums, the social pressure to admit you fucked up and throw your child away for the professionals to deal with quietly somewhere else.

I'm grateful that there was an established community of parents to call on that didn't advocate this approach. I'm grateful specifically to Temple Grandin's mom.

 

[NekoParks]

I'm lucky my son has Marfan's syndrome and has always been bigger than his classmates or he'd be physically bullied. As it is, at 6' 4" at age 15, he's escaped. Sending him to school is an extraordinary act of faith on my part, believing that if he stayed home he wouldn't learn...but I also think some days it's just conscious torture.

He's starting high school next year and I'm hoping it eases, but I doubt it. He's high functioning enough to now be in mainstream classes, but if the kids aren't actively harassing him, I'm getting phone calls about how his expressions are frightening the other children.

If you ask me, it's the other kids that are scary. I defend him and I advocate for him, but I can't make the world any more civil to him. I tell him that school is his job and learning is his goal, and he can't let anybody distract him from it. But of course they do. How could they not, behaving like felons. It is incredibly easy for the general populace to try to humiliate a child with Asperger's, because they think they can "teach him a lesson" by humiliating him into better behavior. That's why I think I've learned an incredible amount from him. I realize how much I learned only because I was humiliated into it, and how much I could unlearn if I followed his example and didn't let the group bully me into something.

Not that I was bullied, but there are so many subtle abuses to being "normal" that being Asperger's brings into sharp relief.

Your son is lucky to have such a perceptive and loving mother. <hugs>

 

[Recidiva]

Your son is lucky to have such a perceptive and loving mother. <hugs>

I didn't start out that way! He gets credit just by breathing Thank you!

 

[NekoParks]

I didn't start out that way! He gets credit just by breathing Thank you!

LOL...I think you give yourself too little credit. Children bring out the best and worst in us, while both breaking our hearts and saving our souls.

 

[Recidiva]

LOL...I think you give yourself too little credit. Children bring out the best and worst in us, while both breaking our hearts and saving our souls.

Amen. And thank you again. This is what I mean about there being compassion in the world.

I know my son will have roads closed to him because of ladies like the letter writer. But I also know that roads are opened to him because there are good people in the world who see beyond appearances into truth.

 

[TxRad]

Diva, good to see you again. You've been missed.

On the subject at hand, I'm afraid compassion took the long walk off into the sunset with common sense. Both are sadly lacking in today's society.

 

[Recidiva]

Diva, good to see you again. You've been missed.

On the subject at hand, I'm afraid compassion took the long walk off into the sunset with common sense. Both are sadly lacking in today's society.

Thank you! Good to see you as well, and as always.

I'm not sure I believe that in a scientific sense. I haven't been insulted by all the billions of people around me personally...and a lot of them seem fairly cool.

Certainly tactics evolve and badly behaved people develop new ways to behave badly, but I think people of good will also develop new tactics.

I'm not sure people of good will are losing the fight. But I think we're in for a continued arms race.